CHAPTER XXXI
THE RESCUE FROM WRANGELL ISLAND
On August 30, at half past seven in the evening, we anchored off Nome. Early the next morning a lighter came alongside with coal but a fresh south-west wind sprang up while we were loading and we had to put to sea, leaving about five tons of coal still aboard the lighter. By eleven o’clock the wind had moderated and we were able to come back to our anchorage again. I paid a call on Mr. Linderberg, who was financially interested in the company supplying us with coal, and he took pains to see that things were pushed forward as fast as possible. Just before dark another gale sprang up and we were forced to put to sea again. By noon the next day, September 2, it was safe for us to return and the lighter was soon alongside. We finished with her by four o’clock the next morning but on account of the fact that in the blow several lighters loaded with coal had been driven aground on the beach and the mail-boat Victoria, from Seattle, also had to discharge freight and needed lighters, there was no other lighter of coal to take the place of the one with which we had just finished.
I had luncheon with Mr. Linderberg. He was well aware of my extreme uneasiness about the continued delay and told me that he had decided to send the Corwin to Wrangell Island after the men; she had formerly been in the revenue cutter service and, as I have already noted, had made an interesting trip to Wrangell in the early eighties. While ashore to see Mr. Linderberg I ran across Mr. Swenson, of the King and Winge, in Mr. Goggin’s store, a great rendezvous in Nome, and learned from him that he was about to start for the Siberian coast on a trading and walrus-hunting trip. I asked him, if he went anywhere near Wrangell Island, to call and see if the men had been taken off and he promised that he would do so. I sent a telegram to Ottawa to let the authorities know that the Corwin was going to try to reach the island and that the King and Winge would be in that vicinity, too, and would call there if she could.
The Bear finished her coaling at nine o’clock on the morning of the fourth and then had to spend the next few hours taking on water. At one o’clock an onshore wind sprang up and I went off to the ship. We got away at ten minutes past two but spent all the next day at Port Clarence, looking for water. I was feeling easier in my mind now because I felt sure that Mr. Swenson would go straight to the island, whether the Bear ever got there or not.
Daylight on the sixth found us off Cape York. We were going along with a fair wind and all sail set. Early in the afternoon we rounded East Cape; so far we were doing well. The wind came dead ahead in the late afternoon. By dark we were abreast of Cape Serdze. The next morning the wind was north-northwest and the sea smooth, a thing which told us clearly that the ice was near. All day long conditions remained the same and at quarter of eight in the evening we were not surprised to see the ice. We were 131 miles from Rodgers Harbor. We lay near the edge of the ice and waited for daylight.
As soon as dawn broke September 8, we went on full speed ahead, through the loose ice; some distance away, on our port bow, we could see that the ice was close-packed. By early afternoon we had made more than fifty miles and were about seventy-five miles from our goal. Luncheon was just finished and I was standing in the chart-room, when we saw a schooner dead ahead, running before the wind. The glasses were soon trained on her and we saw that she was the King and Winge. I hoped and was inclined to believe that she had been to the island, or she would hardly be coming back so soon. Then I began to fear that perhaps she had broken her propeller and was now taking advantage of the favoring wind to put for Bering Strait and Alaska.
I watched her as she drew nearer and nearer; then she hove to and we were soon alongside. I looked sharply at the men on her deck; her own crew was fairly large, but soon I could pick out Munro and McKinlay and Chafe, and of course the Eskimo family, and I knew that our quest was over. A boat was lowered from the Bear, with Lieutenant Miller in charge; I obtained permission from the captain to go along and was soon on board the King and Winge, among the Karluk party.
“All of you here?” was my first question.
McKinlay was the spokesman. “No,” he answered; “Malloch and Mamen and Breddy died on the island.”
There was nothing to be said. I had not really expected to see the mate’s party or the Mackay party, for I had long since ceased to believe that there was any reasonable chance that they could have got through to a safe place, but though it was hard to be forced to what appeared the inevitable conclusion in their case, it was an especially sad and bitter blow to learn that three of the men whom I had seen arrive at Wrangell Island had thus reached safety only to die.
THE RESCUE OF THE PARTY AT WARING POINT, WRANGELL ISLAND
“The rescue, both here and at Rodgers Harbor, was effected just in time.”
None of the three could well be spared. Breddy had been a careful and efficient worker in all the struggles we had gone through since the storm had carried us away in the previous September. Mamen was a great companion, indoors or out; he especially excelled in all athletic sports that demanded fearlessness and endurance, and he was, besides this, a devoted and helpful associate. At one time, in fact, I had had it in mind to send him to the Siberian coast with Kataktovick in my stead, if the injury to his knee-cap had not incapacitated him, and, if he had been able to start on such a journey, I feel confident that he would have made it or died in the attempt. Malloch was an ideal man for an exploring expedition like ours, brought face to face by circumstances with conditions that were calculated to test to the utmost a man’s real nature, for he was not only fully equipped in his own special field of science but beyond all that he was one of the most self-sacrificing men with whom it has ever been my lot to be thrown into intimate contact. If his task for the moment happened to be something connected with his own work as a scientist, he performed it as a matter of course, and if it happened to be sweeping the floor or doing any other odd job that needed to be done, he did that equally as a matter of course, without the slightest thought of self or any other idea in mind except to be as useful as possible to his companions.
I shook hands all around with our party and then with Mr. Swenson and Captain Jochimsen, the brave skipper of the King and Winge, and thanked them in the name of the Canadian Government for rescuing the men. Then I asked Mr. Swenson’s permission to have the Karluk people transferred to the Bear. There they could receive the medical attention that they needed, for there was no doctor on the King and Winge; there was, too, no reason now why Mr. Swenson should not continue the walrus-hunt that he had postponed to go to Wrangell Island for the men of the Karluk. McConnell, also, who was on the King and Winge, came on board the Bear with the rest.
To get the whole party and their few possessions over to the Bear took about an hour. Then we said good-by to the King and Winge and steamed in the direction of Herald Island to make a search for the mate’s and the doctor’s parties, though there was no likelihood of seeing any traces of them. At dark, owing to the ice, the engines were kept working easy ahead; at eight o’clock the next morning, September 9, we were twelve miles from Herald Island. The ice kept us from getting any nearer, and after we had done what we could to find a way through, Captain Cochran decided to go back to Nome. Mr. Swenson had already taken the King and Winge as near Herald Island as he could get, without seeing any signs of human life, and months before, shortly after my departure with Kataktovick for Siberia, McKinlay and Munro had made their way across the ice in the direction of Herald Island and had got near enough to see that no one was there. Later on, as I afterwards learned, the Corwin, on the trip on which, as he had promised, Mr. Linderberg sent her, cruised all around Herald Island without seeing any evidences that any one had been there. It was as certain as anything could be that both parties had long since perished, but it was very hard for me to give them up, men with whom I had spent so many months, men with the future still before them.
From the vicinity of Herald Island, the Bear headed for Cape Serdze and at six o’clock the next morning we anchored off Mr. Wall’s place. Mr. Wall was still away and we did not stop long but were soon steaming down the coast on the way to our next stop, Cape Prince of Wales.
I did not attempt to press the men for an account of what had happened on the island. They had been through a long period of suspense and were entitled to a rest, so it seemed the kindest thing to let the story come out spontaneously as time went on. McKinlay told me part of it and gradually further details appeared, as they came out in general conversation.
Kataktovick and I, as I have already related, left the island on March 18. The Munro party, starting the day before for Shipwreck Camp, made their way with comparatively little difficulty over the ice until they had crossed the great pressure-ridge that had held us up so long on the way in. Not far on the other side they came to open water, so they had to return to the island.
Various trips were afterwards made out on the ice, on one of which Williams froze his great toe so badly that there was nothing to do but to amputate it, to save the foot and possibly further complications. Perhaps many people would have preferred to risk one danger at a time, rather than be operated on with the means at hand. Williamson was the surgeon; he had shown his natural deftness, as I have mentioned before, by his care of Mamen’s dislocated knee-cap at Shipwreck Camp. His instruments consisted of a pocket-knife and a pair of tin-shears. Perhaps no more painful and primitive operation was ever performed in the Arctic, though the whaling captains have frequently had to exercise a rough and ready surgery, whether it was possible to live up to the requirements of Listerism or not. Williamson did his work well, and his patient did his part with rare grit, so that the result was a success.
Following their instructions to divide into smaller parties, for general harmony and larger hunting areas, Mamen, Malloch and Templeman left the main party on Icy Spit and went down around the southeastern shore of the island to Rodgers Harbor. Here they erected a tent and planned to build a house of driftwood, a plan which on account of circumstances they were never able to carry into effect. Towards the end of May Malloch and Mamen became ill with nephritis and died, Malloch first and Mamen only a few days later. Templeman was thus left alone, until he was joined by Munro and Maurer, who stayed with him until the rescue. They lived on birds’ eggs and seal and, later in the summer, on some Arctic foxes which fortunately came their way.
During the early spring the party at Icy Spit were fortunate in killing polar bear, which gave them fresh meat. As the season advanced they moved down the coast to Waring Point, where they found conditions more favorable for getting birds than on the barren levels of Icy Spit. Here they pitched their tents again and took up a regular routine of life. Hadley, McKinlay, Kerdrillo, Keruk and the two children occupied one tent and Williamson, Chafe, Williams and Breddy the other. Breddy accidentally shot himself later on, making the third death on the island. Hadley and Kerdrillo hunted daily and as the season advanced they were able to get seal and duck, which gave sufficient food after the supplies that we had brought from Shipwreck Camp had become exhausted the first week in June. It was never possible to get a very large supply of food ahead at any one time, and as the summer wore on and they heard nothing from me they faced the prospect of another winter with misgivings. Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo kayak, by making a framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over it, and Kerdrillo made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice had broken up.
MAKING THE KAYAK ON WRANGELL ISLAND
“Hadley and Kerdrillo fashioned a rude Eskimo kayak, by making a framework of driftwood and stretching sealskins over it, and Kerdrillo made good use of this in hunting seal after the ice had broken up.”
Both at Rodgers Harbor and at Waring Point the anxiety as to the possibility of our not having made a safe crossing to Siberia to bring help increased as the time went on. It required no undue exercise of the imagination on my part to realize the intense relief which the men felt when, on the morning of the seventh of September, the sound of a steam whistle came across the water to those in the tent at Rodgers Harbor and the party from the King and Winge came ashore. This party included Mr. Swenson and members of his own force, together with Eskimo walrus hunters, whom he had taken aboard at East Cape and who had brought the rescue party ashore in their oomiak, and Burt McConnell, who had come up on the King and Winge from Nome. Reunited with these other members of the original ship’s company, McConnell was now able to tell them of his trip ashore with Stefansson in the previous September and briefly how Kataktovick and I had fared in making our trip to Siberia.
The rescuers helped the rescued to gather together the few possessions of value or interest at the camp and then, leaving a notice for any other ship that might come to see about the men, all hands were soon on board the King and Winge, enjoying the luxury of a bath, clean clothes and an ample breakfast. The tent was left standing as it was, but the British flag that had flown so long at half-mast was taken with the rescued men.
With the Rodgers Harbor party safe aboard, the King and Winge steamed to Waring Point. On account of the ice they were unable to get nearer than two miles from shore. Swenson and his party, again accompanied by McConnell, went towards the shore over the ice; Kerdrillo came out to meet them. Escorted by him they covered the rest of the distance to the shore, several of the others rushing out over the ice to meet them. It was found that if it had not been for the snow-storm which was already growing severe the whole party would have migrated that very day to a point on the north side of the island where, if they had to stay through another winter, as seemed not unlikely, they would have a fresh supply of drift-wood to draw on. Their camp at Waring Point was in bad shape. Their tents were wearing out, their food supply was scanty and they had only forty rounds of ammunition left with which to provide themselves with food during the coming winter. To save their cartridges they had lived as far as possible on birds’ eggs, fish which they caught through the ice and gulls which they obtained by angling for them on the cliffs with hook and line, a form of bird-hunting without a shot-gun. The rescue, both here and at Rodgers Harbor, was effected just in time.
Leaving a message for whatever ship might follow them here, the Waring Point party joined their companions from Rodgers Harbor on the King and Winge and the rescue was complete. The little Eskimo girl brought on board the black cat which had already had so many vicissitudes that it was a wonder that it had any of its nine lives still left to draw on. Here, as at Rodgers Harbor, the tents were left standing. The party brought with them the three surviving dogs,—all that were left out of the twenty that were still living when we had started for Siberia—and three puppies.
The King and Winge steamed towards Herald Island, as I have previously said, but though she kept alongshore for miles she was prevented by the ice-floes from getting very near and finally, to make sure not to be frozen in for the winter, Mr. Swenson decided to set his course for Nome. The weary and anxious Karluk survivors enjoyed the food that was hospitably placed before them and the opportunity to bathe and put on clean clothes. The beards that adorned their faces came off and it was a greatly transformed company that I observed from the deck of the Bear the next afternoon.
We reached Nome on the Bear, September 13. Our arrival aroused great excitement, even though shipwrecked mariners from the Arctic are not altogether a novelty in Nome. The rescue was more than ordinarily a matter of local interest and pride because of the number of men and ships concerned in it that were well known all through that part of Alaska.
The hospitality of the Alaskan is unstinted, as I had already had occasion to find out, but it seemed to me best to keep the men on board the Bear for a day or two, for in their reduced state they would be more than usually susceptible to contagious diseases. It would be the irony of fate for them to survive six months of semi-starvation and then fall victim to some ailment of the civilization to which they had so longed to return. To walk in shoes again, too, after so many months of wearing skin-boots, would be painful for a while. After a few days however, they had improved so much that I let them go ashore; they realized the necessity of being careful and had no trouble. Kerdrillo and his family, too, went ashore at Nome, to start on their way home to the North.
It was marvellous how quickly the men picked up in health and strength. On account of frost-bite Chafe and Williams were under the doctor’s care, though they were otherwise in good shape. The sickest man was Templeman; he could not have survived many days longer. Munro, McKinlay and Hadley, who was in his fifty-eighth year, were all in good condition and would probably have lived through another winter.
We were in Nome until the nineteenth; on that day we headed for the south, our first stop St. Michael’s. It seemed advisable to keep the men on the Bear, instead of transferring them to any other vessel; there were no mail-boats leaving for the “outside,” and the men were warm and comfortable and well cared for. While on our way to St. Michael’s we heard by wireless of the stranding of the Corwin off Cape Douglas; she was on her way from Wrangell Island to Nome, having heard by her wireless that the men had been safely taken off. About eight o’clock in the morning we came within sight of her. On account of the broken bottom we could not get nearer than a half mile from her, so a boat was lowered and the third lieutenant went on board. The Bear lent some of her crew to help lighten the Corwin; then we went on to the reindeer settlement at Port Clarence for water. Late in the afternoon on the twenty-third we reached the Corwin again and our men were returned to us; she was floated a short time later.
Photograph copyright, 1914, by Lomen Bros., Nome
Munro Hadley Captain Keruk McKinlay Chafe Williams
Williamson Bartlett Helen
Templeman Mugpi Kerdrillo Maurer
THE KARLUK SURVIVORS ON BOARD THE BEAR
The next day we returned to Nome to get the Eskimo who belonged on King Island. They had come to Nome in their large skin-boats a month or two earlier to sell the great variety of articles that they are in the habit of carving from the tusks of the walrus; it is really remarkable what they can carve in this way: ships, cribbage-boards, houses, models of men, women and children, etc. The deck of the Bear had the appearance of the first of May—moving day. These Eskimo had come to Nome, of course, in the summer; now the season was getting late and the weather was variable, so that they did not want to take any chances. And, indeed, why should they? The Bear was there and the wires were tapped to Washington; furthermore, Nome did not care to have a couple of hundred Eskimo on its hands during the winter, so the easiest way out of the difficulty was to get the Bear to take them aboard and carry them to their home at King Island, seventy miles away. When we reached there we found that the Eskimo lived in clefts in the rocky cliffs; they were cliff-dwellers. It was a dreary view that met our eyes that cold, windy September morning, but the Eskimo were delighted for to them it was home.
Leaving King Island we called at the school-master’s at St. Lawrence Island, to leave mail and provisions from Nome. The latter were badly needed, for short rations had been the order of the day for some time. Steaming around the western end of the island through a smooth sea under brilliant sunshine, we were at last definitely bound south.
With St. Matthew’s Island a-beam, the next morning, our wireless reported that all the boats from the Tahoma had been picked up; we had heard the S. O. S. call from the Tahoma a day or so before. As we afterward learned, the Cordova, anchored in the roadstead at Nome, had picked up the Tahoma’s call and had gone to her assistance. The Tahoma had struck an uncharted shoal about a hundred miles south of Agattu Island, one of the western Aleutians, and had become a total loss. The officers and crew had reached land in the ship’s boats and were picked up later by the Cordova and the Patterson.
During the twenty-ninth we were held back by a strong southeast gale, but the following day the wind moderated and on the morning of October first we tied up at the dock at Unalaska, which at the present time is the base where the revenue-cutters get their coal and other supplies. The coal comes from Australia and costs twelve or thirteen dollars a ton. The officer in charge of the station here was Captain Reynolds, who had been a lieutenant on the Corwin when she visited Herald Island in the eighties; he read me his diary where he told about their landing on the island and climbing to the top and said that no one could live there and that it was accessible in only one place.
The Bear had to stay at Unalaska for several days to have her boilers overhauled. We passed the time in trout-fishing, chiefly, and also climbed Ballyhoo, a thing which every officer in the revenue-cutter service must do. There is a book placed at the summit and every one who climbs the mountain has to sign his name in the book. I went up with Lieutenants Barker and Dempwolf. Lieutenant Kendall and I had some good ptarmigan-shooting in that vicinity.
While we were here McKinlay became ill and had to go to the Jesse Lee Hospital, where he was soon restored to health. I was glad that he was all right, for in circumstances calculated to show men in their true colors I had formed a high opinion of his efficiency and courage. One of the younger members of the expedition and a man of scholarly disposition—he had been a teacher—he showed no lack of grit in an emergency. In such careful transactions as the checking over and dividing up of supplies, I found him of great assistance. He had a good understanding of human nature—perhaps his experience as a schoolmaster had given him that—and I relied on him to preserve harmony if any question should arise among the different groups on Wrangell Island. In all difficulties he was the cool and canny Scot. Of the six scientists left on the Karluk after the departure of Stefansson, McKinlay was the sole survivor.
About this time the Revenue-cutter Manning was sent to Scotch Cap, Unimak Island, to bring back a lighthouse-keeper who was very ill. The Manning anchored off the lighthouse and sent a boat for the keeper. There was a strong tide running but the boat reached the lighthouse safely and started back with the keeper, when it was capsized and the ship’s doctor was drowned. We all felt his loss keenly because we had got well acquainted with him while the vessels had been in port together.
At Unalaska I met Captain Miller, of the Patterson,
the Coast and Geodetic Survey boat, which had been doing a great deal of work that season off the south entrance of the Unimak Pass. He was a very clever man and as I was much interested in his work, we spent a good many hours together; not so very many months later he was to be drowned on the Lusitania, in the course of the war whose first unbelievable rumblings we still scarcely heard.
On the afternoon of October 14, with the long homeward pennant flying, we cast off from the pier at Unalaska and steamed south on the last leg of the long journey we had travelled since the June day the year before when we had first left for the north. The voyage south was uneventful and on October 24, 1914, the Bear landed us once more at the navy yard at Esquimault.
The next day, under the instructions of the Canadian Government, I paid off the men; soon they had started for their homes, while I left for Ottawa to make my final report of the last voyage of the Karluk.
THE END